The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. It is generally accepted to stretch from East 59th Street north to about East 96th Street, where the railroad tracks of the former New York Central Railroad (and now of the Metro-North Railroad) emerge from beneath Park Avenue to cross Spanish Harlem and Harlem on a massive stone viaduct. Embedded within the Upper East Side are the neighborhoods of Yorkville, centered on 86th Street and Third Avenue, and Carnegie Hill, centered on 91st Street and Park Avenue.
The two square mile (5 km²) neighborhood, once known as the 'Silk Stocking District', has some of the most expensive real estate in the United States. Until the Park Avenue railroad cut was covered (finished in 1910), the stylish part of the Upper East Side with mansions and townhouses lay on Fifth Avenue, bordering Central Park, while the area to the east was a blue-collar district that included stables and breweries. A long high bluff fronting the river north of Beekman Place was dotted with fine suburban villas in the nineteenth century, the last remaining one being Gracie Mansion, now home of New York's mayors.
Its north-south avenues are Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, Park Avenue, Lexington Avenue, Third, Second and First Avenues, York Avenue, and East End Avenue (the latter runs only from East 79th Street to East 90th Street).
The area is host to some of the most famous museums in the world. The string of museums along Fifth Avenue has been dubbed "Museum Mile." Among the cultural institutions on the Upper East Side:
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Last updated: 06-20-2005 06:54:20
